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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Muslim reformers feel shut out of Obama's efforts to fight extremism!

Some of the most prominent reformers have argued for years that the ideological and theological roots of Islamist extremism must be addressed, a topic administration officials carefully avoided during a three-day summit this week. Reformers also say the White House is hurting its own efforts by working with people who sympathize with the goals of violent extremist groups, if not their methods.
"We have to own the issue of extremist Islamic theology in order to defeat it and remove it from our world. We have to name it to tame it," Muslim journalists Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa wrote in an essay published Friday by the Daily Beast.

"Among Muslims, stuck in face-saving, shame-based cultures, we need to own up to our extremist theology instead of always reverting to a strategy of denial, deflection and demonization."
Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, was close friends with her colleague Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded by Islamist extremists in Pakistan in 2002.
At the summit, President Obama and other officials made clear they believe that there is no link between Islam and the Islamist extremist groups that have been at the forefront of a dramatic spike in terrorist violence worldwide over the past year.
"Al Qaeda and [the Islamic State] and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders — holy warriors in defense of Islam," Obama said Wednesday.
"We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam."
Among the goals of the summit were empowering community leaders to help Muslims resist the extremists' message and improved strategies to communicate a more moderate message. But the administration's refusal to clearly identify the threat — and the exclusion of those who do from the conversation — works against meeting those goals, reformers said.
Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist radical and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremist British think-tank, calls it the "Voldemort effect," after the villain in the Harry Potter books whose name could not be mentioned.
Nawaz told CNN on Wednesday that refusing to directly address the Islamist ideology puts all Muslims at risk of being blamed for the actions of a tiny minority — the exact opposite effect of what Obama intended by his approach.
"When the president said there's a poisonous ideology that needs to be refuted by Muslim clerics, the average everyday non-Muslim, the only word they know for that is the religion of Islam and they will think that the ideology we are referring to is the faith of Islam itself and thereby they would end up blaming all Muslims," Nawaz said.
"Islam is a religion like any other with all the various sects and denominations. Islamism is a desire to impose Islam over society. And that is a very theocratic extremist desire. It can manifest itself violently. When it does, I call it jihadism. But it can also manifest itself politically. It's still a problematic ideology because any desire to impose anyone's faith over anyone else is inherently flawed and must be challenged," he said.
"Al Qaeda didn't inspire extremism. It was this extremist Islamist ideology that inspired al Qaeda. And unless and until we recognize the problem isn't these Mafiosi-style groups that we can just take out by taking out their leaderships, but it's the ideology that inspires them, we'll have a new [Islamic State] tomorrow."
Nawaz was among 23 Muslim reformers who signed a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times on Jan. 11 asking "What can Muslims do to reclaim their 'beautiful religion'?"
"If Islam is a religion that stands for justice and peaceful coexistence, then the quest for an Islamic state cannot be justified as sanctioned by a just and merciful creator," the ad by the Gatestone Institute states. "It is the duty of us Muslims to actively and vigorously affirm and promote universal human rights, including gender equality and freedom of conscience."
But none of the 23 reformers who signed the ad were among those invited to the White House summit. One of them, Tarek Fatah, a columnist for the Toronto Sun in Canada, had earlier taken note of the lack of response from administration officials and journalists.
"Instead of engaging with these progressive Muslims and supporting their call for reform, not only did the White House ignore them, but every media outlet I saw other than Fox News did as well," he wrote on Feb. 3.
Instead, the White House and many in the mainstream media work with Muslim leaders who sympathize with the extremists, says Zuhdi Jasser, a doctor and former Navy officer who leads the American Islamic Foundation for Democracy.
"This is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution," he told the Washington Examiner in November. "You can't just say it's about violence. You need sermons that call upon America as the leading force for goodness in the world."
Jasser's activism against Islamist theocracy recently landed him a prominent role in what the left-wing Center for American Progress calls the "Islamophobia network." In a report released Feb. 11, the group said Jasser "promotes conspiratorial claims that America is infiltrated by radical Muslims."
But many so-called mainstream Muslim groups that Jasser has criticized have documented extremist ties. Sympathies with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamist movement, landed two U.S. groups, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society, on the list of terrorist organizations banned by the United Arab Emirates.
Though both groups vigorously deny extremist sympathies or ties, there is ample evidence that CAIR was founded by supporters of Hamas, the Brotherhood's Palestinian branch and a banned terrorist organization in the United States, and that the Muslim American Society is the Brotherhood's U.S. branch.

An A-to-Z guide to the new PC

LISTEN

Brendan O'Neill and Cambridge Union president Tim Squirrell debate the new political correctness

Anyone who thought political correctness had croaked, joining neon leg warmers, mullets and MC Hammer in the graveyard of bad ideas from the late 1980s and 1990s, should think again. When even someone as gay-friendly andGuardian-hued as Benedict Cumberbatch can be hounded for incorrectness, you know no one’s safe. So what can you say? Here’s an A-to-Z guide to the new PC.

A is for America. One-time land of the free, founded by un-PC white dudes partial to a drink and sex with slaves, but more recently the birthplace of identity politics (see under I) and 21st-century taboos (see everything below).

B is for bitch. Perfect example of a word some can say but others can’t. For a sassy chick to refer to herself and her girl pals as ‘bitches’ is cool; for a rapper with metal teeth it is rampant misogyny. To find out if you’re allowed to utter this word, put your hand in your underpants. Is there a penis? You can’t say it. If you do you’re the other B: bigot.

C is for cultural appropriation. When people from one culture adopt the styles or habits of people from another culture. Like middle-class white kids making rap music or donning Native American head-dresses at a rock festival. This is really bad. Thankfully Glastonbury is now restricting the sale of Native American dress and some British unis have banned sombreros. C is also forcheck your privilege. You must do this all the time. If you’re white, male and middle class, you’re super-privileged and must never speak about women’s issues or black people’s problems. White women are more privileged than black women, and straight black women are more privileged than queer black women (don’t worry — queer is OK here: see under Q). ‘What about solidarity and cross-class, cross-race empathy?’ I hear you cry. Please. Solidarity has been replaced by intersectionality (see below). Stop being a dinosaur.

D is for dinosaur. I shouldn’t have said the D-word, sorry. Alongside geezer, codger and blue-haired, it’s what the New York Times calls an ‘age-disparaging word’. Never say it, even to refer to actual dinosaurs: in 2012 some New York schools banned the lessons on dinosaurs for fear of offending creationist kids, and offending people is the worst thing you can ever do (see under O).

E is for ethically challenged. You, if you don’t adhere to these rules.

F is for faggot. Fine if you’re a gay man referring to himself, but it’ll earn you a knock on the door from the boys in blue if you’re a straight man referring to someone else. Never write it on a missile. American Navymen were instructed to ‘more closely edit their spontaneous acts of penmanship’ after one of them wrote ‘Hijack this, you faggots’ on a bomb for the Taleban. Members of the Taleban do not accept homosexuality as a valid way of life and thus should not be reminded of its existence as they have their heads blown off.

G is for gender. Never assume to know gender. Someone might look and sound like a man, and even wear a beard and possess a penis, but ‘he’ might identify as a woman, which is his/her/their right. Who are you, or nature, to say whether someone is male or female or something else entirely? Facebook now has 71 gender choices. The City University of New York recently banned the words ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ from ‘all types of correspondence’ with students in order to prevent the faux pas of wrongly guessing a student’s gender ID. Ask everyone you meet: ‘What gender pronouns should I use when referring to you?’

H is for hir and hirs: gender-neutral terms for him and her. Safest bet when you’re at a dinner party surrounded by people whose preferred gender you don’t yet know.

I is for identity politics. Always define yourself by your natural characteristics rather than your character, achievements or beliefs. You are first and foremost male, female, other, straight, gay, black or white and should refer to yourself as such. Martin Luther King should have checked his privilege when he had that nonsense dream of a world where people ‘will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character’. That’s easy for a middle-class straight man to say, Marty. I is also for intersectionality, the tearaway offspring of identity politics, where you must constantly wonder how your various personal identities intersect with each other (or something).

J is for jokes. Don’t tell them. It’s too risky. Rape jokes, Holocaust jokes, sexist jokes, banter-based jokes — you might find them funny but others will experience them as a threat to their mental safety. Learn from the Dapper Laughs debacle: a wicked joke can hurt thousands and end your career.

K is for kiss chase. Never let your kids play this. For boys to chase girls in search of a smacker on the cheek is evidence of a culture of male sexual entitlement, so mercifully this ‘game’ has been banned in schools across the nation.

L is for LGBTQQIAAP. No, not a place in Wales — an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, allies and pansexual. If you’re the kind of person who says ‘gays’, or even worse, ‘the gays’, stop it at once and learn this by heart.

M is for microaggressions. A microaggression is an unwitting act of discrimination by people who think they’re super right-on, such as asking a black woman how she keeps her hair so funky or inquiring if a lesbian has ever had ‘real sex’. On some American campuses, professors have been accused of racial microaggression for correcting spelling mistakes in black students’ essays.

N is for nigger. Massive no-no (unless you’re a rapper, and even then tread carefully). New editions of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finncome with the N-word expunged. Just as cigarettes are being cut out of old cartoons and Ghostbusters is being remade with the main roles now played by womyn (see under W). The past must be corrected.

O is for offence. The original sin. Offending people is worse than punching them. And offence is in the eye of the outraged — it’s they who decide if your words are hurtful. One man’s joke might be another’s mortal blow to his self-esteem. To avoid offence, speak as little as possible.

P is for people of colour. Coloured is bad, but people of colour is fine. Of course, it might one day be added to the list of once-PC but now sinful phrases, so keep an eye out for updates.

Q is for queer. Queers can say this, but non-queers can’t. Unless you’re an ally (see under L), in which case you can.

R is for racist. You’re a racist. I know you think you aren’t, which is sweet, but you are. Everyone is. By this point, we should all know about ‘unwitting racism’ — being racist without realising it. The solution? Racial sensitivity training for all. Stop racism by encouraging nationwide racial consciousness.

S is for safe space. A zone, usually at a university, in which no offensive language, off-colour jokes, banter, lads’ mags, mansplaining (men talking about feminism), manspreading (men spreading their legs), gender-questioning, or any other wicked words or deeds are allowed. A prototype PC society.

T is for tranny. Never say this word. Ever. It’s the Voldemort of PC. Whisper it and you will be accused of transphobia — not a country but a mental malaise that prevents you from accepting that gender is a fluid concept.

U is for uterus. If you have one of these, you may speak about abortion; if you don’t, you may not.

V is for vagina. People with vaginas, check your privilege. You aren’t the only people who get to call yourselves women. Plenty of folk do not have vaginas but are every bit as female as you. The US women’s college Mount Holyoake recently banned The Vagina Monologues because it ‘offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman’.

W is for womyn. An alternative spelling of ‘woman’ for those who reject patriarchal spelling norms.

X is for Generation X, the post-baby-boom generation that is the architect of PC, which having waged a war of words against its hippy-dippy parents and their harebrained belief in a colourblind, gender-ignoring world, is now caught in a desperate rearguard action against younger activists armed with hashtags and intersectionality.

Y is for #YesAllWomen. A social campaign — well, a Twitter hashtag — created in response to the assertion that said #NotAllMen were rapists. Maybe they aren’t, but #YesAllWomen are victims.

Z is for ze. Gender-neutral term for he or she (see Rod Liddle, opposite). Z is also for zero tolerance. Of homophobia, rude old novels, saucy photos, and anything that might offend someone somewhere sometime. From student unions to trendy workplaces, the PC love nothing more than to boast of their lack of tolerance. You thought tolerance was a good thing? Get with the programme. Don’t be a D-word.

Brendan O’Neill is the editor of the website Spiked and the subject of Ban Brendan O’Neill Day, a national day of action being organised on Facebook for 1 April this year.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 7 February 2015

Rudy Is Right

Rudy Giuliani is in the stocks for saying that he does not believe that President Barack Obama “loves America.” He said this at a small, private dinner for Scott Walker, who probably will not be inviting Giuliani to very many events in the near future. Giuliani went on to say that he wasn’t questioning the president’s patriotism — angels and ministers of grace defend us! — only noting that the president’s rhetoric is decidedly low-cal on the American exceptionalism but full-fat when it comes to criticism. It may be the case that the president is a practitioner of the Smokey Robinson school of patriotism: “I don’t like you, but I love you.” Something’s really got a hold on this guy, and it is not an excessive fervor for the American order.

Obama: Americans Are Inviting Jihad By Criticizing Islam (Let the Bully Murder or He'll Get Mad)

American and European citizens and journalists are spurring jihadi violence by protesting the arrival of Muslim populations into their societies, President Barack Obama declared Thursday.
“We’ve also seen, most recently in Europe, a rise in inexcusable acts of anti-Semitism, or in some cases, anti-Muslim sentiment or anti-immigrant sentiment,” Obama told a Feb. 19 audience of U.S. and foreign officials and advocates, who met to discuss ways to minimize jihadi violence.
Peaceful criticism of Islamic culture is bad, he suggested. ”When people spew hatred toward others — because of their faith or because they’re immigrants — it feeds into terrorist narratives. … It feeds a cycle of fear and resentment and a sense of injustice upon which extremists prey,” he said.
So “we have to ensure that our diverse societies truly welcome and respect people of all faiths and backgrounds,” said Obama.
He insisted the conflict between Muslim and Western cultures is not caused by fundamentally different attitudes about freedom and religious solidarity.
The violence is caused by tit-for-tat “cycles of conflict,” and lack of dialogue. he said.
In the Arab region, “the terror campaigns between Sunnis and Shia will only end when major powers address their differences through dialogue … [when] political, civic and religious leaders [begin] rejecting sectarian strife.”
In Europe and America, governments should guide public debate over Muslim culture, Obama insisted. “We all recognize the need for more dialogues across countries and cultures. … So let’s bring our youth together to promote understanding and cooperation,” he said.
“That’s what the United States will do with our virtual exchange program — named after Ambassador Chris Stevens — to connect 1 million young people from America and the Middle East and North Africa for dialogue,” he added.
Since October 2014, tens of thousands of German citizens and families have been marching quietly and peacefully to protest the local government’s plan to settle many Muslims in their city.
The peaceful “PEGIDA” protests have expanded to other cities and countries since the jihad attacks in France, Belgium and Denmark, but have been met with opposition by an alliance of progressives and Islamists.
“PEGIDA” stands for “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West.”
Those protests have been angrily criticized by establishment leaders. ”In the name of the government and the chancellor I can say quite clearly that there is no place in Germany for religious hatred, no matter which religion people belong to,” the spokesman for Germany’s prime minister said in December. ”There is no place for Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or any form of xenophobia or racism,” said Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz.
The elite support for immigration of Muslims comes as polls show rising American and European opposition to immigrant Muslims’ mixture of religion and culture, which endorses polygamy, hostility to free speech, anti-Semitism, and which doesn’t value free enterprise, equality for non-Muslims, personal freedom or sexual equality.